NWN2 - Review #2 @ 1 Up

November 14th, 2006, 06:37

In a new review of Neverwinter Nights 2, 1 Up has rated the game 6/10. Citing the game&#39;s many technical glitches and hang ups, reviewer Jeff Green said:

All of this is great — and if the review ended here, we could all sing "Kumbaya" together in happy harmony. But the sad truth is that NWN2 shipped in a pretty messy state, and even after a couple patches (as of this writing), the biggest problems remain. In general, and depending on your system and your tolerance, you&#39;re going to spend a lot of time upfront basically doing the job the developers should have done before shipping the game: fixing the weak A.I., futzing around with the graphics options and camera controls, and resetting basic gameplay options until the thing is playable. And good luck with all of that, because not all of it is easily done (or even possible).

Originally Posted by Jaesun
Which one of these games is more a Role Playing Game?

This is irrelevant. It is a game review, not an RPG review. I know all of us here will be somewhat biased, but still… I, for one, have not had Oblivion corrupt a save game (for example).

NWN 2 is a decent game (and better than Oblivion IMO) in concept. Oblivion is a better game in execution. Maybe not 150% better, but on the whole the review is fair. As the man says, patches will change things.

Now that's more like it (as reviews go, that is). I found myself nodding in agreement with just about all of the criticisms levelled at the game… except that I have managed to get it to run very smoothly and at quite high graphics settings. I would still have rated it a 7 or 8 though; the wrinkles can (mostly) be worked around.

Originally Posted by Jaesun
So 1UP tries to save face by still giving NWN2 a crap rating… but gives Oblivion a 9 out of 10???

The problem is that they have changed their scale - therefore making those comparisons no longer works … something they know and admit.

If you look at the new Games for Windows mag (Jeff Green, who wrote the review and fell on his sword over the retracted one by Matt Peckham, is editor of GfW), you see a description of their scoring policy basically saying 'old system was 7-9, 7 was average, below that was crap' and 'new system is really 0 - 10, but now 5 is truly average'. And they do keep to that for at least a few reviews.

The problem is that if you look in the Mag and on their Site, they are applying this *very* inconsistently, meaning that NWN *is* getting screwed compared to some other games being reviewed right now.

Originally Posted by txa1265
The problem is that they have changed their scale - therefore making those comparisons no longer works … something they know and admit.

If you look at the new Games for Windows mag (Jeff Green, who wrote the review and fell on his sword over the retracted one by Matt Peckham, is editor of GfW), you see a description of their scoring policy basically saying 'old system was 7-9, 7 was average, below that was crap' and 'new system is really 0 - 10, but now 5 is truly average'. And they do keep to that for at least a few reviews.

The problem is that if you look in the Mag and on their Site, they are applying this *very* inconsistently, meaning that NWN *is* getting screwed compared to some other games being reviewed right now.

I have to agree with you on this Mike; as I said when the first review came out, 1up is not going to single-handedly reverse the dumbing-down of scoring games. For the worse, reviews these days are essentially on a 7-9 scale - any score for a game worse than 7 and the game a dog that should be avoided. I might add that the same "grading" is true of college these days, where As and Bs have become all that is acceptable, and to give someone a C or a D is like failing them out altogether. I don't agree with the way this works, but it is the reality of the situation.

I don't agree that there is a scoring inflation problem with most major sites. If you read Gameespot's site, you'll see a huge spectrum of review scores. There might be a preponderance of scores in the 7-9 range, but that's because lots and lots of games on the shelves are moderately enjoyable but not superb, and therefore deserve that score. Just about everything that I have played by EA in the past five years fits that description. X-play reviews games fairly too. I think that 1up.com and the other ZD sites are basically "fixing" a problem that doesn't exist.

Also, some of these complaints for this game about the AI and the graphics piss me off, because those problems were plain and obvious there in the first game (perhaps even worse), but pretty much every reviewer overlooked them and did nothing but spooj all over that overrated game. NWN was also very bug-ridden when it was released and had a corrupted save game bug for at least a few months. I was worried that this was going to happen. This is a typical trend in the game reviewing business. The first game of a series gets hyped ridiculously and overrated. The second game then gets pummeled for faults that the first game had but the reviewers "forgot" to mention. NWN 2 is the better game hands down but the reviews aren't nearly as stellar. It gets basically no credit for restoring true D&D gameplay, which hasn't shown up in a game since Temple of Elemental Evil and hasn't shown up with a quality story and NPC's since Baldurs Gate 2.

Originally Posted by txa1265
That doesn't mean it isn't there. Read this and look at this:

They are evidently scoring to the grading curve, not a true 0-10 gaussian.

What games don't belong where they are, and why should that curve be flat? What's wrong with reviewing a big chunk of games in the 7-9 range if that's where they naturally lie? There are a lot less games out there that are abysmal than those who are average. If that's the case, then there should be more 7's than 1's, and that's what you generally see.

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
What games don't belong where they are, and why should that curve be flat? What's wrong with reviewing a big chunk of games in the 7-9 range if that's where they naturally lie? There are a lot less games out there that are abysmal than those who are average. If that's the case, then there should be more 7's than 1's, and that's what you generally see.

The curve shouldn't be 'flat', but look more like this:

If "average" is 5 due to the 0-10 scale, then a statistically significant sample would tend to exhibit 'central limit' behaviour and distribute randomly around the true mean. However, the distrubution isn't random at all, nor is 5 the center. It means that for IGN / GameSpot, somewhere between 7 and 8 is the 'average'

Originally Posted by Cabezone
Can someone explain to me what's so wrong with it?

It depends on how you like the camera to act and how you used it in NWN. I used the Chase Cam in NWN, and love the KotOR cam. Therefore it just never quite works the same in NWN2. The biggest issue I have now is that if I switch party members or if a dialogue comes up, my centering gets off-kilter a bit.

@doc and txa:
You two are actually arguing past each other, in a manner of speaking. It's a matter of defining what you mean by "average". txa is using "average" in the more mathmatical sense, assuming that the number of "average scores given" should equate to the number of "average games". Doc is using "average" in the more aesthetic sense, focusing on the quality of any given game as measured against more abstract ideas of quality of craftsmanship and fun rather than strictly against all other comprable games. So, you're both right.

The real quesiton is, should a game reviewer assign scores based on where that score will place the game in the spectrum of other like games? Or should he or she assign a score based on where he or she thinks the game rates against the ideas of craftsmanship and fun.